“It blinds them to signs that the ‘way we do things’ needs to shift for a boutique law firm to remain viable,” she explained.

“They say ‘my clients don’t want that’ about a new idea without asking the clients first. They smoother impetus to try new things.”

Implementing change in any business is hard, especially for boutique law firms, Ms McLay mused. If a dinosaur is a co-owner of the firm, she noted, it can make things very difficult when getting agreement to try something different.  

“If you try to go around them, dinosaurs create headwinds. They don’t come to training, insist that their work is special and has to be exempt from the new systems or use inefficient manual workarounds,” she said.

“If a dinosaur is your manager, it is depressing to be stuck with labour-intensive ways of working. It takes time to learn how to use tools like eDiscovery or how to prevent complex ideas visually. If your manager doesn’t believe that learning those things are valuable you won’t get a chance to demonstrate how useful they could be.”

Dinosaurs have to recognise, Ms McLay posited, that “change is hard and, before implementing it, [you must] decide why it is strategically essential for the firm’s future.”

“Don’t talk about implementing every idea you see other firms are using. Make a strategic choice about what you will change and stick to it. You are better off completing 10 small changes than embarking on one big, under-resourced and incomplete project,” she said.

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“The hardest part about implementing effective change is the discipline to commit to resource a project through a mid- to long-term timeframe. Law firms tend to have a short-term focus, moving from one month’s billing to the next. Too often resources are pulled away from longer term projects to meet a client deadline or achieve a short-term billing target. No one is measuring the opportunity cost of inaction on longer term plans.

“Start with some smaller projects and build up the firm’s change appetite by successfully finishing those before tackling bigger projects.”

For those who might be aware that they are dinosaurs but are worried about up-ending their tried and tested practices, Ms McLay said that it is never too late to start. 

“Just pick one thing you do which is unnecessarily time-consuming and look for a better way to do that. Ask someone for help or try Google. Often, the hardest part is pausing to ask the question ‘Is there a better way?’” she said.

When asked how best tech-savvy lawyers can help bring the dinosaurs up to speed, Ms McLay said that modernising a dinosaur requires some strategy and persistence. She made the following recommendations:

What’s in it for me? 

“Look for solutions to a pain point for the individual. For instance, if they can’t touch-type, try voice recognition software which transcribes voice to text surprisingly accurately,” she said. 

Support different ways of learning

“Supplement training sessions with easy to follow instructions for common tasks. Make a tutorial by using screen capture videos,” she said. 

Manageable chunks

Don’t overwhelm and scare them with lots of changes, Ms McLay warned.

“Focus on improving one area like making it faster to open a file. Build up some credibility by showing benefits from the change before moving on,” she said.

It is in the air

“Dinosaurs won’t go looking, but if you start to regularly show them something useful, they can absorb it,” she said.

“Every team meeting can demo a quick tip about the practice management system or Microsoft Office. If you need ideas, there are lots of free videos on YouTube.”

Look elsewhere for support

If your manager is a dinosaur, Ms McLay continued, you need to look for support elsewhere.

“Accept that you need to educate yourself about new ways of working. Find people who are comfortable trying new things and ask them about how they work. Follow more innovative lawyers on social media. Go to [Australian Legal Technology Association] showcases for innovative technology.”

Get creative

Finally, practitioners must look for creative ways to incrementally improve the ways that one’s manager works, she said.

“They might dismiss visual contracts but appreciate an easy to comprehend flow chart for a complex corporate acquisition,” Ms McLay said.